Packers' defense needs to 'change it up' and 'disguise it'

[Cheesehead]

Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine


On whether it was encouraging to have guys in position, hitting Cook at or behind the line several times:


I don't know if encouraging is the word I would use. But no, there's certainly something to that. We need to do a better job across the board. He has proven in his time in the league that he's a special back and he's difficult to bring down and you've got to make sure that technique-wise, you don't wait for him and give him a lot of open space to make you miss. Unfortunately, we did that a few times. So, no, it was obviously a bad day for us and the inability to get him on the ground is what cost us the game.


On possibly leaving the corners alone and selling out to stop the run:


I don't think you can give any offense the steady diet of just one thing. We do have a ton of faith certainly in Jaire Alexander. I challenge somebody to find a corner who's having a better season than he is. And certainly Chandon Sullivan's been very productive for us from the nickel spot. Kevin was playing at a high level and unfortunately got hurt. There are times where it's a calculated risk and you put those guys on an island, and Josh Jackson stepping up, he's done some good things for us. I just don't think you can give a team a steady of look of 'Hey listen, we're going to put those guys one-on-one on the outside for an entire game and say we've got to stop the run.' I think you've got to change it up, you've got to disguise it.


On potential confusion or misalignments vs. Vikings:


For sure, it was a sloppy performance. We were admittedly flat. Especially playing defense, you have to be at a certain emotional level, and we weren't there. To their credit, they got after us for a good part of the game. We settled in and finished the game well but by then, it was too little too late. There were some technique errors that we made, there were some physical errors that we made and there were some schematic things that some are fixed in-game and some we had to talk about and see on the film after the game.